2018 Stone Fruit Harvest Weeks Away

Published: Wednesday, April 18th, 2018

We are less than 3 weeks away from starting our 2018 harvest, and things couldn’t be better here in the San Joaquin Valley. We have had a great spring, which brought us much needed rain here in the valley and snow in the mountains, sunshine to grow our fruit and pump them full of sugar, but also cooler temperatures than what we have experienced the past couple of years. We have started earlier than “normal” (whatever that is I don’t know) the past 3 years, but I like to just compare dates to last year. It appears that we will be a week or so behind start dates of 2017. This isn’t always a bad thing, as it allows the fruit a bit more time on the tree and hopefully will size to our likening.

We know there has been some concern from the freeze we had in February, but it appears to have only affected 1 or 2 varieties and it doesn’t appear to be catastrophic. We are beginning to see some plums and plumcots out in the field as well. They traditionally are the last commodity to really shed their jacket and can be difficult to see because of their dark color and the amount of leaves on the tree. Initially we thought they may be a bit lite, but as of this moment we believe there is a very nice plum and plumcot crop in the fields.

Winter Dormancy

One of the most important things we look at this time of year is the number of “chill hours” or dormancy we have had during the winter months. These chill hours are a very important number as it generally plays a key part in the quality of our fruit!

Ideal Chill Hours:

1000-1100 hours

2017 Chill Hours:

805 hours

2018 Chill Hours:

977 hours

Start Dates

Yellow Nectarine

5/5

Honey May

White Peach

5/7

Snow Angel

Yellow Peach

5/9

Spring Flame

White Nectarine

5/14

Polar Ice

We are very pleased at how things look and are progressing in the fields and are excited to get things going. We will have updates for you from the field all year, so look for your Mountain View and Summeripe fruit coming to you very soon.

Apricot: New Crop

April is the beginning of the California stone fruit season. Our “new crop” approach is to proclaim the news to consumers about that start, and the promise of delicious fruit to come in the following months.

New Crop Poster

The Iron Man Poster (22"x28" for the second half of April is the "New Crop" poster. It provides a welcoming image to consumers, letting them know the new crop from California is here!